Stories from the Manor
by Anagram RMX
Summary: A drabble collection based around Prue, Piper, Phoebe, Dean, and Sam Halliwell as they grow up in the manor.
1. Pilcrow

A/N: so I do this thing every now and then where I'll write drabbles using the word of the day as a prompt, and for the month of December, I'm trying to do it every day. Since my current fanfic focus is The Power of Three (plus Two) most of the resulting fics have been based around the Halliwell-Winchesters. And also usually as children. So, this is a companion to that series, but it can be read separately.

The prompts are usually integrated incredibly vaguely, but it is a one word prompt. That's sort of how they work.  
I don't know how many people will read it, but I decided to collect them here anyway. Please enjoy.

(-:-)

pilcrow 1. a paragraph mark.

Prue hurried through the door of the kitchen, looking around and taking a mental check list.

_Piper is in the kitchen making dinner with Grams, Phoebe is in the garage...where are..._

She saw her cousins sitting at the dining room table. Sam was focusing on something with his tongue sticking out of his mouth.

Prue let out a small sigh, but she smiled. Her little cousin was only six, but he was unnervingly intent in his schoolwork. He was just starting to write regularly, instead of just small sentences, and every day after he came home from school, he would sit in the dining room and write sentences until his hand started to hurt.

Next to him, Dean was looking over his shoulder, pretending to read a magazine. He could pretend all he wanted, but Prue knew he was trying to help his little brother.

"That's not how you write that letter..."

Prue raised an eyebrow and walked closer to them.

"Yes it is!" Sam replied, his voice hurt that his brother thought he was wrong.

"No, it's not," Dean repeated, closing his magazine and pointing at something on Sam's practice paper. "That's wrong."

Sam pouted and looked around, quickly spotting Prue and giving him the biggest puppy-dog eyes. "Prue, make Dean stoooooooop..."

Dean rolled his eyes and looked up at her. "I'm telling him the truth," he insisted.

Despite the fact that her cousins were arguing, Prue smiled as she walked around the table to help them. She was used to it at this point, playing mom to all of the younger kids in the house. "Let me see," she said as she leaned over the piece of paper.

The page was covered in wobbly letters, and at first, she couldn't tell what Dean was talking about. It wasn't until Sam's chubby hand slid to the last line he had written, and she saw the word _pillow_ was spelled with a ¶. She winced a little.

"Dean's right," she told Sam gently.

The youngest Halliwell immediately frowned, looking devastated. "But..."

"The letter P goes the other way," she said, bending over and taking Sam's pencil, writing it the correct way, "and it's only got one stem, see."

"But-but Miss Jones keeps writing this on the board when we're talking about book structure. I thought..." Sam whined.

"Well Miss Jones is wrong," Dean grumbled.

Prue shot him a look, and he rolled his eyes.

"It's not wrong," Prue said civilly, "it's just not a P. It's the paragraph symbol. It's a short way of writing paragraph..."

Sam still looked upset to find out he was wrong, and he looked at the page sadly. "Oh...why does it look like a P then?" he complained.

"Because the word _paragraph _starts with a P," Prue explained.

With that explanation, Sam looked mildly appeased, and he started to write again. Dean opened up his magazine, and Prue went back to make sure Phoebe wasn't injuring herself as she cleaned the paint she had spilled in the garage.

At least, she was about to, when she heard Dean speak up again.

"That's not how you spell that word."

"Pruuuuuueee!"


	2. Tea-Party

Piper was still young enough to play tea-party when Bobby met her, and it was always her favorite game. Given the dream she had later to own a restaurant one day, it wasn't surprising.

He would just be passing through, maybe not even there for a whole day sometimes, when he would wander into the kitchen and there she was, standing in her tiny checkered apron, and talking to some imaginary friend while she cracked eggs into the bowl. The sight was adorable, even to a gruff hunter. It was also a bit reminiscent of what he could have had with Karen, and for a few minutes, he just had to stand there and watch in amusement as she stumbled around getting ingredients she would only pretend to add to the bowl.

And then, she turned around and her face lit up when she saw him. "Bobby!" she exclaimed, nearly dropping the bowl. "You wanna help me make cookies?"

Bobby had smiled even wider, but laughed. "You don't seem to need any help from where I'm standing," he commented. "What're you baking for?"

Piper turned to him, still stirring the mix. "I'm havin' a tea party," she explained. "Sam and Phoebe like cookies best, so I'm makin' some. You should come too! It's gonna be fun, and there's gonna be…tea and cookies and…"

Bobby tried not to laugh at how she was bumbling over her words, but at the same time felt the need to save face. As adorable as she was, no-way no-how was he going to be playing tea-party at the tiny coffee table in the living room. Even if no one else found out, Penny would never let the incident go.

"Sorry, darlin'," he said gently. "I don't drink tea…"

"Well then you could have coffee," Piper explained, as if that fixed it. "Or water or juice. There isn't gonna just be tea."

She was going to be a great hostess when she got older.

"Please, Bobby?"

He shook his head, and started to say no again, but then he saw how her brown eyes had gotten all big and sad. She was clutching the mixing bowl close like it was a teddy bear, like she couldn't bear to hear the word no again.

Oh god, abort! Abort!

"Err, I've actually-"

"Pleeeeaaaasssssssssssse?"

He just knew Penny had taught her how to do those eyes, too. He fought with his masculinity for a moment, before sighing a little. "You sure you want someone with oily jeans at your fancy party?"

She made a face. "You can clean up just like the rest of us, mister!" she exclaimed, sounding just like her grandmother. Piper went back to mixing. "But it's not fancy dress or anything. Be in the living room in half an hour."

And he'd be damned if he wasn't in there, sitting on the floor with Sam and Phoebe when Piper brought in her plate of invisible cookies.


	3. Somnambulism

somnambulism noun. Sleepwalking

It was a little past eleven, too early for Penny Halliwell to go to bed, but far too late to do anything really productive. She moseyed about the house, picking up the little pieces of clutter like Sam's toys and Prue's photographs.

A tinkle of glass set her senses on edge. Something was in her house in the middle of the night. Instinctively, she went stalk still and listened carefully. She heard the rattle again, coming from the kitchen, and turned to go in search of the intruder.

It was a bit of a surprise to see that instead of a demon, three was a small girl with light brown hair sitting in the floor of the kitchen, and Grams let out a sigh.

_Piper..._

The little girl's face was scrunched up, worried, even though she was asleep still. She was looking through the China cabinet delicately.

Grams remembered a time when Patty had held Piper after episodes just like this. She would get out her favorite china and comfort her daughter with a glass of warm milk, promising Piper that she and her dad hadn't broken up because of her.

Piper was a worrier, always worried that other peoples troubles were her fault. She tended to get night terrors or sleep walk when it became an issue, and always wandered around as if she was doing chores or cooking to make it better.

She hadn't done it since the year Patty died, though. There hadn't been anything to distress Piper like this.

But that had changed. Now, two small boys had moved into one of the upstairs bedrooms, and Piper's uncle had left them there so he could go chasing monsters.

"Piper," Grams said softly. "It's bedtime, sweetie. You should be in your room?"

"Dean needs milk," Piper whined back, poking at another china set. "Let me make him milk and I'll go back to bed..."

Of course it would be Dean that had upset her. He had upset all of them through no fault of his own. He and his brother had lost their mother less than a month ago, and he hadn't said more than two words to any of them since they had arrived in San Francisco.

Twelve year of Prue had taken grams at her word when she said that Dean was okay, just grieving, and instead had focused on helping with baby Sam. Seven year old Phoebe just seemed to ignore the fact that Dean didn't talk, and made him play with her anyway, no matter that he was silent.

Piper had been slowly trying to get him to talk, but every time he didn't respond, Penny could see the sadness on her face. Piper was just trying to help, but it wasn't working.

"Dean's asleep," Grams told her. "I'll make him a glass when he wakes up, I promise."

"He can't be asleep if he's crying," Piper insisted, rattling the china again. "I'm going to make him some milk..."

The news that Dean was crying at night wasn't a surprise to Grams either.

He had been crying _most_ nights since he'd moved into the manor. The first time that grams had found him, quietly sobbing in his sleep, she had woken him up, only for him to freak out and insist on crawling into the crib with Sam (which had woken the baby and which caused a lot of screaming).

Since then, Grams had tried to wake him a few times, but if he did wake up, he would catch himself crying and force the tears to stop while pretending he was still asleep. He was crafty for a four year old, and it made Grams' heart ache to know that her grandson was already afraid to cry in front of her.

Grams sighed, going over to Piper, gently leading her away from the cabinet. "It's okay Piper," she insisted. "He's having a nightmare. As long as we don't wake him up, he won't remember it."

"But he needs milk..."

"He also needs sleep," Grams said patiently. "I'll make him milk in the morning. Everything will be fine..."

Piper, in her sleepful daze, took her word for it.

Grams wished it really was.


End file.
